The First Days of the Spanish Civil War, Part 2

James, Margaret, Robert and Garrison continue their discussion of the coup and the Catalan revolution, and learn about the first art therapy program for children traumatized by conflict.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:05):
Ah, welcome back to it Could Happen Here? This is
part two of it Could Happen Here, the podcast that Fox.
All right, that's my job done today. Okay, Part two
of James the Spanish Civil War and the the Antifa Olympics.
That's right, yep, uh Civil War week. Closing out with

(00:26):
this one. Why does the Olympics? Why did the Antifi
Olympics hate freedom? Though? Is my question. The Antifa Olympics
are going around and destroying all of the balls. Yeah,
they are taking your children and bustloads of black clad
athletes are showing up in your city, stimp place. This

(00:46):
does make me think back briefly to win. A couple
of different anti fascist groups in Seattle and Portland played
soccer and it became a whole thing because yeah, they
were Oh I used to play anarchist soccer in New
York City and oh that got that got canceled hard. Well,
it's it's importantly they got canceled art it also because

(01:07):
it was in New York City, there was a bunch
of like semi famous actors who would come and play
anarchist soccer but then couldn't be like visually associated, so
like people would all mask up in solidarity. Whatever camera
people would come by because like some famous actor was
playing anarchist soccer in the park. That's very funny. Yeah,
that's that's danding. More of that needed. And yeah, these anarchists,

(01:30):
of course would just busy doing the traditional anti fast
Just think of starting forest fires in Oregon before okay,
before the Civil war. So anyway, picking up from the
last episode where we left our heroes, Yeah, we're talking
about the heroes, right. So with the minitary merging towards
the city and every balcony in the working classroom bolt
quickly becoming a sniper's nest. Every rifle was needed at

(01:51):
the barricades with Spanish and cattle and tops took an impressed,
idented break from being bastards and instead significant elements of
the most squadro one of the Seville and the elite
paramilitary assault guides grabbed their hand carbines, rifles with names
like Tiger and Destroyer, and he took none of them
are called Roberts, saddi um and took to the barricades

(02:13):
and what missed opportunity. This is why the Spanish lost
Get me my robber. I can see it now, I'm
prepared to help you with the advertising. It no, just
just gonna bother them right up. That's why they called
them bobbies. Yeah, famously. I think we need to make
I think it needs to be some sort of like
nine barreled electronic volley gun. I want to Yeah, sometimes

(02:37):
we could take out to something that could take out
at least two Japanese prime ministers at once. You only
need two barrels for one prime minister, so you could
get up to four. Yeah, yeah, space some time. Yeah,
all right, today, go back and get Joan shiro Koaizumi,
finally bring him to justice with a nine barrel gun. Mhm. Okay,

(03:02):
So these people, so the cops and the anarchists are
fighting alongside each other. Is that what you're just correct? Yep.
The anarchists are pulling up paving stones, building barricades, which
they had learned in previous conflict with the state could
stop light artillery, and they are welcoming the cops. It's
worth pointing out that the here is a Day are
not cops, and the here is a Day are very

(03:22):
rarely cops. Instead, it's the ordinary people of Catalonia, right,
everyone from liberals to left libertarians runs to the barricades,
but the anarchist affinity groups, the anarchist defense committees are
the mortar that holds together the resistance right. They are experienced,
they have plans, They provide imputers and inspiration to the

(03:44):
working class. They are ready when their liberal government is not.
Um they're a pretty good handle and fighting in the
streets of Barcelona too. This is their home turf Right
And incidentally, we see this ship a lot. Like people
who are good at fighting the cops become integral and
fighting the state happened in the my Dad happened in
Too Rear Square, both with ultras right liquor football fans.

(04:05):
People who go to football games through also like fighting
cops UM. So like, it's not unprecedented that the folks
who are good at fighting the cops become integral at
fighting the state when state turns bad turns bad in
many cases. They also have more experience when it plating
their weapons than the poorly trained conscripts, because it would
be pretty hard to have less. There's a little bit

(04:26):
of a debate, a discussion about causality here. Does the
coup fail where it does because the cops remain loyal
or does the beach head established by the working class
at Lava cops who were sympathetic but not convinced to
safely remain loyal. Right, So across Spain, it's like not
quite the same as the US to the cops are

(04:47):
better trained and better armed than the military, but they
often hung back until the working class to take a
decisive action. Right um, the was where the winds blowing, Yeah,
exactly like they sometimes like occasionally they will do some
sort of kingship like in the one city they a
couple of the assault guards are their officers side with

(05:08):
a coup, so they get shot by their own men.
Love to see. In other places they signed to do nothing.
In some places the soldiers come for them where I
like it, it's on now. But in other places they
join with the working classes. They do. In Barcelona, the
civil guard is older. The civil guard tends to be
in more rural places where the coup tends to be

(05:29):
more successful, and civil guide tends to be less lowered
to the republic. The civil Guide in Barcelona waits until noon.
The coup is really defeated by noon. By noon, the
soldiers all hold up in the food buildings, and it's
very clear that they haven't won. And then they come
in on a horseback clip clopping down the street doing
the raised fist salute, like just milking it to announce

(05:51):
their sort of loyalty to republic. They did have better
guns and better marksman, so they were helpful in assaulting
their buildings. That came next. Alright, alright, every one, we're here.
We saved the day. Yeah, here we go, thin blue line.
So what happens all across Barcelona is the tremendously poorly

(06:13):
organized army meet well organized when in trench resistance, and
they're killed a turn back. So I want to give
one example of this from Avonida Carrier. It's related by
Beaver in his book. Now, what they've done in the
carrier was taken out huge rolls of newsprint, like the
stuff that you put newspaper on, and rolled them into
the streets to make a barricade. Right. Um, so yeah,

(06:36):
a degree to which people were like ready in amusing
ways is it's a great part of this, you know,
that was what they had available to them. Seems to
be stopping bullets. So is the way to stop bullets?
It is? Yeah, lots of layers of newsprint um different places.

(06:57):
So yes, it was yeah, yeah, it certainly seemed to
work here. And they had their big old guns like
Spanish mouths. Telefighting stops for a second, and a small
group of workers and an assault guard closed the distance
between themselves and to seventy five millimeter field guns. But
they're holding their rifles above their heads. They said that
they wanted to talk and not to fight for a

(07:19):
few minutes, to give a passionate speech informing the soldiers
they've been lied to that the anarchists were not in revolt,
that they were in fact part of a coup, and
that they should not fire on their predatorian brothers. It's
not exactly clear what they said, but whatever they said,
it worked, and very slowly the seed of class consciousness
was planted and it bloomed in about the time it
takes to turn a seventy five millimeter gun a hundred

(07:39):
and eighty degrees loaded and fired at your offices. Which, again,
it's just so good like that that these powerful anecdotes
of like someone just being like, ha, yeah, now that
you phrase it like that, we're on the same team.
Let me turn this around. Yeah. I also just love

(08:02):
to think of the guy who has just been like
previously like for God and country gets vaporized by seventy
five millimet Again, it's truly magnificent death. So the popular
Olympians are still in town, right. Uh, they turned up
to show off as anti fascist, but they didn't really

(08:25):
expect to be showing off their anti fascist BUTTA fighters
quite like this, But lots of them were winning participants.
The Americans were down by the bucket your market, you've
probably been there, you've been to Barcelona. He probably bought
an edible arrangement um what tourists like to do um.
And they watched the streets around them turn into battlegrounds.

(08:45):
You can see the bullet holes in the hotel where
they stayed in, some of the cafes around there, and
that some of these bullet holes that should be mentioned
from a sadah and altogether different battle. A year later
and they're there. They popped down of their hotel rooms
to take a look at what was going on, got
shot at, and then went back inside and then out

(09:06):
of different balconies. But they had this sig of popping
out of different balconies, like I don't understand what the
fund is going on in their heads, whether like people
keep shooting at us, let's continue to try different balconies.
I can see doing that, just being serious, right, like
yeah yeah yeah, they and they'd all made friends with
Spanish people, right, they were just they were not the

(09:26):
athletes of today that they were out late drinking every night,
and they were really bummed, very quickly, very upset that
we need to get stuck in, like you know, we're young,
healthy people and their diaries. They also right about seeing
the Spanish women at the barricade and just being like,
oh fuck, yes, this is outstanding. Yeah yeah, they're They're

(09:47):
just like because they're very committed, right, like these these
anti fatties are very committed to gender equality, like they
really are. And it's it's demonsitable in all the communications
about the popular Olympics, when they send stuff to unions
and unions like here's a team, it's tend dude say like,
well that's fucking disappointing, Like where are the women? What
are we doing here? Hey? How are we making the

(10:08):
world better with just a bunch of dudes exercising together? Like? Um,
so that it really is. I think it's very genuine
commitment for them, and they're yeah, they're they're so pumped.
So when the fighting lolls, these guys come running out,
and they saw those cavalry horses, Right, the cavalry horses
that they'd expected to parade down the Rambler in the
victorious coup had now been stacked on top of each

(10:30):
other as barricades, and so the horses. Yes, they used
the horses as cover. You can find pictures of this. Yeah, yeah,
it kind of The horses didn't want to be fascists. Yeah,
but I think you can take some solace in knowing
that the people who are riding them also got killed. Yeah,

(10:50):
you say the horses didn't want to be fascist. This
is in the intersection of ship you enjoy robot actually yeah, yeah,
shipping on horses and hating fash ye, which are the
same horses, would be very good at shipping on fascists
from a great light. Yeah, yeah, I know, r I P.

(11:13):
Horses did nothing wrong. Paul went out for the horses.
So Charlie Burley runs down into the street, right, He's
pretty accustomed to fighting. He's a boxer. He's a mixed
race kid who grew up in Pittsburgh, He's refused to
go to the Olympics because he doesn't want any of
Hitler's bullshit and he doesn't speak Spanish, so all he needs,

(11:37):
oh he knows how to do. It's pick up a crowbar,
start leavering up, paving stones and helping to build a barricade.
That's universal language. Yeah, breaking ship, and so he just
gets stuck in and now I'm rhythm do right. These
barricades he built, like I said, they were so strong
that they would stop like artillery across the city with

(12:00):
and snaps of bullets cracked across the wide boulevards that
cut through the regimented grid of the Exemplar snipers were
stationed in the bell towers of churches. They picked off
the newly formed People's militiaies a dash between the barricades
carrying ammunition of food. A French athlete, the right wing snipers.
That's correct. Yeah, yeah, so that you will definitely read it.

(12:21):
They were priests, but they're not. I don't think, just
a weird you know, if you're gonna put a sniper,
then you want to put something up there who knows
how toes a rifle. But yeah, that makes yes, yes,
So they probably weren't pretty that. That That doesn't mean the priests,
we're not betting them surely were. It's some points um,
But yeah, this is why the churches get burned. It's
one of the reasons. A group of German exiles suspected

(12:42):
their companies diplomats might be involved, so they raided their
homes and found massive statues of weapons, which is great.
The Republic had very liberal asylum policies, so you have
a town of German Italian anti fascists already in town
elsewhere people found each other in the streets were joined

(13:03):
up with pre existing affinity groups to form Centuria. Centuria
is a Latin word for units for a hundred soldiers.
They're broadly based on a language, and they're named after
some famous leftist like Tom Mann, Karl Marx Ornst Salomon Rent,
their founder of Antifa with a capital H. Later these

(13:25):
would become the nucleus of the International Brigades. But the
International Brigades were the army of the commintern and the
Centuria weren't basically like under Soviet control. Yes, that's right there,
Soviet controlled communist internationals, so they would not trynal Lee
stylist more or less right, and certainly like you can
read our ship hand about the International Brigades going from

(13:47):
a broad popular front leftist alliance to straight up stylists
and what that does to their their desire to fight
and their ability to fight. And I would suggest that
it's not great. That's story as all this time. Yes
it is. Yeah, draw your own conclusions. Cecil lb is
very good on that, if you want to read his book. So,

(14:09):
these Centuria don't have officers, and they certainly don't have
commissars right and off their roll too fight the Nazis.
By eleven am, General Goddard has landed from New Yorker.
He was hoping to command the city which he The
Nationalists thought that the Bathburner would be the easiest city
for them, right, they thought it was a soft target,
and they were wrong. I don't know what again, Yeah,

(14:33):
not smart. It was only through the intervention of Kalida,
her son incidentally killed Trotsky, that his life was spared.
He hold up in the headquarters. Headquarters was over run.
They wanted to execute him immediately. She intervened. She says, no,
you know, we've gotta we gotta do this pretended justice.
So we put him on the prison ship of Uruguay

(14:53):
and then he's killed a little later after a court martial.
He's executed a few weeks later in the mounch Wee Castle.
That in the mounche Wee Castle, the troops had shot
their officers and the n c o s had leaded
a raid on the armory where they began distributing guns
to anarchists. Again, Yeah, very cool. Yeah, I love to
see it. The Cattla left and the Catholic Church had

(15:17):
some historical disagreements. Right, the Church had a long history
of violence towards the left, and the left had equally
long history of violence towards the church. The church had
been part of brutal oppression of the working class, right
victimization of people, especially of working class women, and as

(15:39):
troops withdrew from the city in July, anarchists began to
take revenge against the churches. Nune's corpses were disinterred, priests
accused of collaboration were executed. By the afternoon, the sky
began to fill with smoke. Churches burned all over the city.
Sometimes they had these things called checkers, which were like
revenutionary tribunals. Where they put the priests or the murches themselves.

(16:01):
Later outside Madrid, there's a famous photo of them like
executing a giant statue of Jesus try st after putting
it on trial. That's Watch in the Future for Robert
Evans is that is a pretty funny bit. It's good.
There's a firing squad and everything. That is like a
pretty good dedication to the bit. You've got it. Whether

(16:22):
or not you agree with it, you have to respect it. Yeah. Yeah,
it's a good T shirt. Maybe we could return to
merch and have that that image. But yeah, some Catholics
rebuilt it. Daddy, it's it's no longer riddled with bullet
holes in its face. Well, it's time to do well,
yeah you know what that means. Yes, it's time to

(16:46):
kill God and storm heaven. Yeah, and redistribute all them
stuff harps for everyone. Yeah. People wore robes. Actually, this
became a bit of an issue because people will be like, lo,
look at me, I'm wearing a robe. I pretend to
be a priest, and then other people will be like,
fuck you priest and shoot them. Yeah, I don't do that. Actually,

(17:13):
robes for everyone. Bad idea at a time of anti
clerical violence. What you can do is drink all the
communion wine, which is what they did. It's sorry, all
the blood of Christ is what they do. Yes, yes,
I'm sorry. Actually, I guess it only becomes that in
the stomach. Yeah. No, I'm a bad Catholic. I don't
remember any of this. Or it's just wine until they
until they do the thing and say the words, and

(17:34):
then there's something special happens. That's that's that's the the Eucharist.
So was the pre blood. Yeah, it's it's pretty blad.
It's just sweet wine. By the twenties of July, the

(17:56):
military was all but done for in a city, right,
but some of them had retreated back to their barracks
immediately they came out promptly, got shot up by a
ship ton of people and went nope, and Paul the
one returned to the barracks. So smarter than the tourists
at the hotel. Yes, although I don't know about that,

(18:16):
because these guys end up dying there and the tourists
do not the side one. But yes, yeah, idea true. Well,
I would be lying if I said the tourists do not,
because one of those tourists does a guy called Albert
I'll chacken. They called him chick. He was a coach
of the team, community college professor actually, and he leaves,

(18:42):
goes back to America and just can't deal with like missing.
It's not so much at the guilt of not being there,
it's and I think some of us maybe can relate
to this in a way, right, like the missing of
being there too, like that, Yeah, and how special it
feels roberts off. Robert can can relate to this, right,
Like sometimes it's some time you feel the most alive

(19:04):
is when you're trying not to be dead. But also
like this was a fucking awesome time, right, Like the
cops have joined the working class, the churches are on fire,
the bosses are running for the hills, and the army
has just had its ass handed to it by like
a bunch of men and women in blue overrules. Like
I can imagine it felt pretty cool. Um. So he

(19:25):
goes home and then he decided to come back. He
comes back with his wife. His wife wins the first
art therapy program for children traumatized by conflict. Yeah, the
the the pictures are ECSD. I used to go sit
with them all the time just kind of I don't
feels like a special place, like a nice connection. That's
the kind of stuff that gets like left out of

(19:46):
history too much, too right, as these contributions like and
these like developments that come from political articles that are
like not just the gun, the Robert you know or
the you know, season of workplace US, but the developing
of art therapy for people dealing with traumatic event that rules. Yeah,

(20:06):
absolutely right, Like these people made homeward bombs, but they
also made it easier for kids to process their trauma.
Like that's what anarchism is, folks. Um. But yeah, Jenny Burman,
they hyphenated their last names Berman Chaking uh yeah, advanced, Yeah,
highly progressive. Yeah, his wife Jenny was definitely the radical

(20:31):
and she she sort of brought him on and he
was like, yeah, fucking you got it. Um. So yeah,
he goes back. You can see the pictures at UCSD,
they're online too. But Al dies in a sort of
chaotic retreat to the International Brigades. No one knows where. Right.
I'm trying to write a book about him, have some
of his diaries. Just an inspirational guy in a lot

(20:52):
of ways, very nice guy. He's also like he sort
of draws a lot of disdain from the other passengers
on the boat when they crossed seeing the first time,
because the passages keep getting mad that the black folks
and the white folks are eating at the same table
at dinner from the popular Olympics team, and he's just
like super mad at this and like why would you
be that way? So it just keeps like getting and

(21:13):
he is a wrestler, right, He's a collegiate wrestler. He
at Olympic trials, just keeps getting in people's faces about it.
I guess, which like, yeah, is I guess being an
ally or something, but just yes, Jenny Berman is in
there's a film called The Good Fight, which is about

(21:35):
the American volunteers, and you can see her talking about him.
Cool and yeah, I think it's it's obviously pretty difficult
experience for her talking about him, but I'm sure the
whole thing it's pretty rough, given you know, the things
that happened afterwards. But yeah, again, I'm a wonderful person.
She's passed away now. But yeah, actually it's it's the interview,

(21:56):
it's the full interview with her that I'm waiting for us.
I can write about him, and yes she does. Look
at the good Fight. It's a good film. So on
the July, the anarchists are assembling outside these barracks. Right,
they had to support the police, but I didn't want
it anymore, and so they assembled their own troops instead, right,
the Olivia Abati, Santi Lascasso and Adesome Chad shit, and

(22:23):
they do what the anarchists did at this time, which
is they lead a frontal charge on the barracks where
there are still machine guns. And so they are brave,
but perhaps not tactically astute. I've read about this where
basically one of the problems that people had, like strategically

(22:43):
about the anarchists is that the anarchists in Spain were
so uh fervent in their beliefs that they basically were like,
hooray soon I will be a murder and like all
charged the machine guns and like weren't always the most
strategic is that map to your understanding or in the
early days of the civil war, they're like because they

(23:04):
have been raised for decades of propaganda of the deed,
right uh, and like propaganda of the deed is is
saying like you know, like you can die as a
hero and become an example to the working class and
you will elevate the cause. And it's as close to
martyrdom as you can get in an atheist political belief,
I think. And yes, so they were just like like Ascarsa.

(23:25):
Ascaso is a famous anarchist leader. Ascaso is a guy
who dies like literally leading the charge frontly on a
machine gun at this time, at this barracks. Right, he
dies in less than twenty four hours after the war started.
And he's a member of this Nostos group with the
Routine and others and Garthie Oliver, and he's the one
who gives his name to the pistol. Right. So in Tlassa,

(23:49):
the CMT, the the anarchists, anarchis Central Gist take over
an arms factory, taken over, the workers run the factory,
and they start making these pistols with his name. It's
like the only gun that is not in some way
morally compromised. So I guess in that sense he goes
on to kill a lot of fascists. And but yeah,

(24:10):
they don't want the help of the police, they don't
want the tactical advice. The Routie actually later is very
good at this. He has regular army officers embedded with
his column and he listens to them, and that allows
him to be more successful than the other anarchists. But yeah,
here the battle cries atlante, which is like, you know, forward,
men of the c NT. They had women to but

(24:33):
I guess that's not what they were going for. And
they took the barracks along with thirty thousand rifles. Pretty
much all of those would be in the hands of
working people within a couple of days. Yeah, that's a
vast like this is a decent slice of the Republic's
weapons until they get resupplied later. And interestingly, like the

(24:53):
the Soviet Union and Mexico supply them, but they the
Republican government in Madrid doesn't want people supplying the anarchists,
so only um c Z or the check Gun Company
are willing to elicitly violate two different arms embargoes to
supply the anarchists later in the worst yeah based c Z, Yeah,

(25:14):
maybe we can have them be the advert for this episode. Finally,
a solid case for the hammer fired arm in modern days,
you have to honor the legacy of c Z. Yeah. Yeah, again,
the only the only morally correct firearm to buy. Wouldn't
have done that? Motherfucker's Nope, No, I don't see any

(25:36):
glocks in an anarchist hands. Uh yeah, by a thirty
two a c P. Because it also killed Hitler. It's
the most anti fascist you can you can. Hitler killed Hitler.
But you know we don't have to go there fascist. Yeah,
critical support or you could say, yeah, well you know

(25:59):
who else tried to kill Hitler? Hitler? He did once
before in nine after the failed Munich punch. But his
friend puts the han Stengel's wife, who he had a
crush on, from killing himself, which was a mistake. Yeah, yeah,
she let the team down. So see that's where Cez

(26:20):
came in, giving him an efficient way to kill himself
with no wives around. Did have a wive around, didn't he? See? Well,
thank you, Sez. Hitler's dead. Uh. And with that, let's
go back to Spain Catalonia. I guess um. So the
French Popular Olympics team left that day. They sang the
International Aisle from the deck of their boat as they

(26:42):
pulled out the port. A few days later, on the
Rambler Parade was organized. The various nations of the Popular
Olympics march down the street led inexplicably buy some bagpipers
who had arrived with the British team. Hell yeah, that's
another international bag page. Yeah yeah, yeah, why why not?
I love that? Like yeah, some anti fascist bagpipers had

(27:04):
been recruited by this point, and they all sign the
international in their own languages, did the race fist salute
that would become the popular friend salute. And they heard
a speech, and in the speech they were told, you've
come for the Games, but you have remained for the
greater front in battling, in triumph. Now your task is clear.

(27:25):
You'll go back to your countries and spread the word,
the news of what you've seen in Spain. So some
of them went back, and some of them stayed. All
in all, about two hundred of them actually uh stayed
to fight or came back to fight. Um. Some of
their names Bill Scott. He was an irishman who came
for the Games. He he went back and forth between

(27:46):
Spain and Island. Bunch wrote in some wrote some letters
to newspapers to encourage other people to join. His big
slogan was a victory for fascism in Spain is a
victory for fascism in Ireland and the that's the same
slogan that the other side used to write. Yes, but
the Irish volunteers who fought for the fascists were fucking
exceptionally useless. Yeah yeah, and may have excelled more than

(28:11):
Iris voluteers who fought for the anti fascist a killing fascist,
which I guess critical support to them. Um. He fights
in the Battle of Madrid, Bill Scott we gets shot
in the neck or will style, So they go Robert.
Maybe they really were sticking their next out mm hm,
and you've got Otto Bosch. Otto Bosch was a lover

(28:32):
of novelists and poet Muriel Rook isiser. He was a
cabinet maker, sprinter and literally an actual card carrying Antifa
member and now he was a soldier. Um he also died.
The sad part about this part of the war is
everyone dies pretty quickly afterwards. Yeah, yeah, it's really sad.

(28:54):
These people are, you know, as good as people came
and they all end up dead. But let's not talk
about I want to focus on the victorious part, so
that evening right do Rucci got the olive and about
this Anthion go and meet with compounds Ascaso is dead right,
because he was on his heroics. They're still in their monos,

(29:16):
they're still covered in blood, and they're still carrying their
weapons with bitches away. One should meet with a politician,
so he gives them this little speech. And I, like
some people say this's apocryphal, I don't really give a funk.
I think it's nice. I'm going to read it. It's
not very long. Um. Firstly, I must say that the
C and T and the FI have never been treated

(29:38):
as a true importance merited. You have always been halfly persecuted,
and I, with much regret, was forced by political necessity
to oppose you, even though always once with you. Today
you are the masters of the city and of Catalonia,
because you alone have conquered the Fastist military. And I
hope that you will not forget that you did not
lack the help of the loyal members of my party,

(30:00):
but you have one and orders in your power. If
you do not need me as president of Catalonia, tell
me now, and I will become just another soldier in
the fight against fascism. If, on the other hand, and
you believe that I, my party, my name, my prestige,
could be of use. Then you can depend on me
and my loyalty as a man who is convinced that
the whole past of shame is dead. So that's nice,

(30:22):
that's that's cool. I mean, it's yeah interesting, you know, right,
it's fascinating. I think it's the clearest we get to
a person at a time, being Like in the last
twenty four hours, I have gone from president to a
guy who has to ask the anarchist for a rifle
so I can fight. Yeah, and like it's a you know,
people get on that, the Lensky stuff, but this is

(30:44):
kind of different, I guess, you know, Like it's good
to find someone who cares about a cause more than power. Yeah.
As a rule, if it's your job to be in
charge of people, I'm probably not a fan of their
job existing. But if when it comes down to it,
you you you throw down rather than the hide in
a bunker or flee the country to live in exile
in I don't know, whatever friendly country, then that's better

(31:07):
than the alternative. Yeah, yeah, i'd agree, And I think, yeah,
being more attached to this and to yourself preservation or
your power, I think is admirable. For example, if Joe
Biden had burned down the third Precinct himself. I think
a lot of people would feel more positively towards him.
He did, though you didn't. We're not supposed to talk

(31:29):
about this on the podcast. Guys, all right, you're right,
this is this is yeah again wraps until the mid
terms really start to heat up. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's
a surprised video of Joe Biden with a firebomb. I
was told that he had a kind of ax body
sprain of lighter mm hmmmm yeah, that's how he normally

(31:51):
roles when he's in Block and all right, sorry, that
image is like so cursed that I'm like Joe Biden
and Block doing the smile like he's in the Camaro,
but we're just holding the ax body sand. But everyone
can figure out it's him because he keeps touching people

(32:11):
and everyone's keeping He's sniffing everybody's hair, asking if he
can smell the inside of their bala clavas. Uncle Joe,
a hero, true anti fascist. Yeah, are you are you
going dark Brandon on us? Oh? God, we are. We

(32:33):
gonna have to explain what dark bread it is on
the pond. I don't think we need to. I don't
think that's ever going to be irrelevant. I think we
would just say, let's go get up. Kids. Just type
Dark Brandon into your Twitter search and see what happened
and educate yourself this right now. But please get yeah,
please do because I don't have a clue. No, I

(32:54):
have no idea what they're talking about. Yeah, I know
on the Internet enough, and I don't think I haven't
one to be um, So things go differently on across
the country, right, um the Navy. I'm waiting to hear
Margaret squeal or scream or cry. I just don't understand. Okay,
I think it's that he's a vampire. Yes, go fucking

(33:17):
go ahead, tell us about dog brand. I don't know.
It's just weird. I don't want to know. Yeah, you
don't need to know. It's fine, it's it's a good time.
It's it's it's a good time on the internet. That's all.
The Dark Brandon is all right. The Navy doesn't fall

(33:43):
for the coup, right, and this leads to this spectacular
exchange between the crew of the James, the first Battleship
right of the Ministry of Marine crew to Ministry of Marine.
We've encountered serious resistance in the minds and officers on
board crew to Ministry of Marine, we have subdued them

(34:04):
by force. Urgently request instructions as to bodies. Ministry to
Marine to crew, lower the bodies overboard with respectable solemnity.
What is your present position? So what they've done there
is the officers have declared for the crew for the coup,
and the minute the sailors on board the ship have
killed them and throwing them over the edge. Subdued by force?

(34:24):
What do we do with the people we have subdued?
Just the most amazing radio message like the officers turned
out to be Rudd's and then like brief pause, what
do you want us to do with their bodies? Again? King? Shit?
So it's a few days before the battle lines really
get drawn as to who is where, who's on what

(34:48):
side of the Spanish Civil War. It's a few days
before it becomes clearly this is a civil war because
without boats, the rebels seemed to be in trouble, but
the fascists came to their abe with planes to where
lift the troops from Africa. The Republic had more troops
and more access to supplies, and it looked like they
were going to win a war of attrition. That doesn't
work out because France, the UK, and the United States
abandoned Spain and a fascist do not abandon Franca. I

(35:11):
don't really want to finish there. I want to backtrack
and think about how many times in the past or
the present the working class of a city is spontaneously
organized to prevent an army from entering that city, especially
in the age of the tank and the bomber. I
can't already think of any and I know if you
guys can, but I can come up with one. I
got nothing, yeah, anyone, I mean other than Kiev kind

(35:36):
of yeah, some of it was at least spontaneous, but yeah, yeah.
And it wasn't against their own army like they had
an army, no, that is yeah, I mean you could
there are pieces of that, and it was it was
not as organized or clearly as successful in you know,
the Holy Week uprisings and the Watts riots and stuff. Yeah, yeah, true, yeah,

(36:00):
pieces of it. Yeah, I mean, even like in Minneapolis, right,
like where the state didn't exist for a while. But uh, this,
this revolution is somewhat unique at least in that right,
And what happens afterwards, and what happened in the Civil

(36:23):
War isn't what I want to end on. You can
see this kind of idea in ken Loach's film Land
and Freedom, that this was a romantic failure, and I
don't think that's true. I think that the the only
way for the Civil Water succeed was doing what it did.
For the Republic to succeed was doing what it did well,
and what it did well with harnessing the enthusiasm and

(36:44):
passion of the working class people to build a better
word for themselves. When it became not worth fighting and
dying for something, then the war was already lost for
a lot of people. Trying to mass behind a conventional
war effort doesn't make sense when your enemy has every
advantage in a conventional war effort. But I don't want
to focus on that. I want to focus on the

(37:04):
last week, when the city is in the hands of
the people, when there are no cops and no bosses.
People go back to work as collectives when there's no money,
but people distribute food to people who need it all
across Spain, and not just at the bar of a gun.
People collectivised. They collectivising Castile and the socialized industry in Valencia.

(37:26):
And it's a remarkable moment in human history, and it
doesn't last more than a year, but I think it
shows us that this, this other future was possible. Right.
The path we took from to the present day was
not the best one, but I like to think that
just for just for a little while, it could have
done better. And and I think that's where I want

(37:47):
to end, really, is thinking about how we could do better.
And if people want to read books this this has
already been a long episode. I will say Helen Graham's
very short introduction is very good. Um, Anthony Beavo's newer
book is good, and you can get an audiobook Julian
Casta Nova. It's one of my favorite writers in Spanish

(38:08):
and some of his stuff is translated into English. Augustine
Giarmad's book Ready for the Revolution on the affinity groups
of the CNT and and Chris ellen stuff on Barcelona
is excellent, and if you're in Barcelona, Nick Lloyd's Walking
Towards are excellent. Yeah, that's hope. That's enough there. You
can watch Ken Loaches film. You can watch I think

(38:30):
it's called Parallel Mothers that's on Netflix, a couple of
good films. Yeah, thank you so much, Margaret again for
joining me too, and hear me drown on about the
Spanish Civil War for an hour and I'm into it.
I didn't know, well, I've only been learning the details
more recently, you know, I've always just heard about it

(38:51):
in in broad strokes and the like. You know, a
lot of people like talking about what it means, right,
but till about what it means isol But the stuff
that's like really interesting to me is the stuff that
actually like makes it matter is the the person who
shows up and you know, develops ways to deal with
trauma by art therapy. And the people who bravely steal

(39:17):
dynamite and become named named Rose of the Dynamiter. What
was what was her name? Yeah, she loses a hand. Yeah,
it's better than Rose of the Riveter. I mean, no
offense to Rosa the Riveter, But Rose of the Dynamiter
is is is doing well? Um? What was it called? Dynamiter?

(39:37):
Go after all of the libraries keeping the books in
prison free knowledge keepers of thought. I really like variants
taken away get canceled, but I like libraries and librarians
you all aren't ready for this discourse, Margaret, but kill

(40:00):
Joy take your librari coroblematic. That's how we know your
a CIA asset because of your pro library style. Yeah, exactly,
classic capitalist infrastructure. What where did the CIA train all
those people to overthrow governments? The School of the America's
what does every school have? Library? Library is the problem

(40:23):
because that's the School of America's. There's there's two things
wrong with School of America's school and America. Most the
problem is the school part. I think the real problems
School of the Americas that had School of the Dame,
and we can't have that. That is, that's an oppressive,
hierarchical system of learning. Unbelievable. If America Vespucci never came here,

(40:45):
maybe things would be different, maybe even better. Wow, anti
Italian slander, I'm here for it. Well let's all end
on that note. Fuck Italy yea and funk traffic lights, Margaret,
Do you have anything to plug? I do. People can
get my they can pre order my book that is
all about why traffic lights are bad. Um. It's called

(41:07):
we Won't be here Tomorrow, and it's written from the
point of view of a traffic light that no, it's
knows it's about to be abolished. It's out from a
K press. Um who uses the red and black flag
is the logo, and much like the anarchist in the
Spanish Civil War who developed the red and black flag,
which is to reference, of course, the negation of the red,
because the red in the traffic light is what stops you, um,

(41:29):
and so the black is the negation the red in
this in this case, and that's what happens when you
disconnect a traffic light from power. It goes black. No,
it's disconnecting ship. But people are shooting the traffic light.
And you know what a k do you know what
a K press? Do you know? Do you know what
a K press sells? Well? Books and and books? Where

(41:49):
do where do books get kept? That's right, that's it's all.
It's your everyone is in on it. Okay, Well, if
you don't want to be part of the evil world,
you can do what is clearly good, which is listened
to podcasts and create para social relationships the public medium
of podcasting. And if you want to create a para

(42:09):
social relationship with me, you can listen to my podcasts,
one of which is called Live Like the World Is Dying.
It's an individual community preparedness podcast. And the other one
is called Cool People Who Did Cool Stuff, which is
all about people who defend libraries from people like you,
um and anti anti learning nihilist radicals. Yeah, anti library action.

(42:33):
That's right. That's right. That's what the l is, isn't it.
That's that's what that that is why I fly the
black and gray. I'll just watching alright. Thank yous wants
to make me an an Arco goth flag that was
black and then black lace. That's great, thanks for having

(42:59):
I would fly that al right, Well, thank you for listening. James.
Where can people find you online? I'm on the internet.
You can just put in my name at James Stout
on Twitter. Um. Sometimes I write things I will talk
about them there. Great, Well you can find me at
I right, Okay. You can follow the show by cool

(43:20):
Zone Media and happen here pod and send any complaints
to at Sorry no send no send any complaints to
add Okay, okay, yeah, it's okay. I don't read responses.
Bye bye, bye bye bye. It could happen here as

(43:42):
a production of cool Zone Media. For more podcasts from
cool Zone media. Visit our website cool zone media dot com,
or check us out on the I Heart Radio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts, you can
find sources for It could happen here, Updated monthly at
cool zone media dot com slash sources. Thanks for listening.